CHARACTERIZATION
Characterization is the process of setting forth, of depicting, the characters in the story. It is a specialized sort of description, both internal and external in its scope. Effect to be sought after in characterization The result to be sought after is an effect of life-hlte¬ness which will make the characters seem to be living be¬ings in whose affairs the readers have a genuine interest. And indeed this end is now and then so fully attained that the characters do become our permanent possession as friends. But such sense of actuality can scarcely be produced upon the reader unless the writer has him¬self realized his characters. The height of verisimilitude is reached when the author and the reader experience the same emotions as a given character excites in his fellow characters. Then, indeed, there is vital delineation. In De Finibus Thackeray describes himself as writing in the gray of the evening and picturing a character so vividly to himself that at length he looks " rather wistfully up from the paper with perhaps ever so little fancy that HE MAY COME IN." 11 I have said that the author's purpose in characterization is to create a life-like impression. But a word, and only a word, must be added to particularize this general statement. The literary ideals of the writer will mould this purpose into one of the following five forms: to de¬pict characters precisely as they are in life (realism); as they ought to be (idealism); as they might be under extraordinary conditions (romanticism); as they would be with their natural characteristics exaggerated to dis¬tortion (caricature); or, as they would appear under conditions which the writer creates for them (a com¬posite of the other four methods). CHARACTERIZATION Characterization, in Short-story, in novel. Character conception. What it involves. Characteristics differentiated: Typical; Generic; Individual. Individuality many-sided. Development in character. The main plot action a means of defining character. Lesser methods of characterization. Direct, by details, by analysis, presented gradually. Indirect. Materials: Action; Effect upon another person; Appearance; Names; Accomplishments; Environment; Speech . . 129 IN a powerful story, with excellence of form there will be found blended excellence of characterization. It is, nevertheless, the restricted form of the Short story which makes the task of characterition . . . especially difficult. The means of drawing character in the novel and in the Short story are essentially the same. The only difference is that, while the novel is unrestricted, the Short-story requires _An intensive application of methods. While in the novel one may listen at leisure to a recital of the hero's characteristics and watch him develop through two or three hundred pages, in a multiplication of episodic incident and in crisis after crisis; in the Short-story one watches the main character in but a single full crisis and sees him . -portrayed in few pages, by a limited amount of incident and scant description. The Short-story must not devote time and space to nonessentials. Characterization should be of the swiftest. A few sketch-strokes must be made to do the duty of whole pages in a longer narrative. Yet the character must be definite, true, and lifelike. From the way a character meets the single crisis, one should be able to judge how he would act under other circumstances. His measure should be taken, so that one may know whether he is a great man capable of great things or a little man capable only of petty things. By what is said, much that is „left unsaid may be suggested. The essence, almost, of i man's character should be indicated by means which seem perhaps no more than the habitual expression of that character. Such finesse of character drawing seems almost impossible; yet a hand has been so painted as instantly and unmistakably to suggest the Person to whom it belongs. So, also, a Short-story may suggest a character in its . „-entirety. Such characterization will bring all one's powers of imagination, of observation, of reflection, of sympathy, of insight, into play. It will demand a sure technique, a deft touch, a discriminating knowledge. A character is not simply a record of personal appearance and external peculiarities. It does not consist in a loud voice, an affected accent, a stiff manner, an unusual gesture, a modest glance, or a genteel appearance. All of these things indicate character; they are the outward expressions of the real man, but they are not the real man. A character represents a whole man. It consists of the sum of a man's habits, physical, mental, and spiritual. One wishes to know how a man thinks, what are his thoughts, how he acts, how he speaks, what are his prejudices, his joys, his fears, his hopes, his successes, his failures, his loves, his hates, his disappointments, his capabilities, his crowning ambitions. Such things may be hidden to the casual observer. They make up a man's personality, — something too subtle for analysis. They may fail to be observed in one's best friend or to disclose themselves to oneself. Yet they are there for good or for evil, making one man into a murderer, another into a saint. Stress of emotion, or a sudden change of fortune, may reveal a trait which has been for years unsuspected. So many are the variations and shadings of personality that no one individual will appeal in the same way to two persons. At one time a person may seem even-tempered and gentle, at another, quick-tempered and stern. The characterizer has, therefore, a difficult task. He must combine all that he feels a character to be into one suggestive whole. He must know a character so thoroughly that he will reveal not the man's external characteristics, but his personality. He must understand human nature and reflect it with power and much sympathy. Although it is impossible for a writer to know anyone individual perfectly, he may know the character he chooses to portray in a story. The writer may thus reconcile the warring elements of character, make the inconsistent seem consistent, and the imperfect seem perfect. The character which he makes will not be a portrait reproducing the exact 1 "Later on, ' said Maupassant, 'when M. Dumas asks me where I found my woman's face, it will be amusing to tell him, In a shrine at Noire Dame des Doms, of Avignon. . . . I confess I have not found in that figure all I want for my type of a woman. Still, I saw in that expression of face the uncut lines of an actual individual; it may be a composite of the characteristics of many individuals, all bound together by one dominating trait. The actual facts may be culled by observation from life, but the character will be shaped by the broodings of imagination. "The character created is not a thing of shreds and patches. It is a new conception. " 1 No amount of observing and arbitrary piecing together will make a character worthy of the name. In its making there must enter a vast deal of imaginative insight which will recreate and make a character actually live for a reader. 2 Because a character is diamond I have to polish. I perceived some artistic details which will be of use for carving my subject, that I hope to make very striking, as near perfection as possible. In my Angelus I intend to give all the power of expression of which I am capable; every detail will be cared for minutely without tiring the reader. I feel very well-disposed to write this book, the subject of which I possess completely, and which I have conceived with surprising facility. It will be the crowning piece of my literary career; I am convinced its qualities will awaken such enthusiasm in the artistic reader that he will ask himself if he is in presence of reality or fiction. " Recollections of Guy de Maupassant. By his valet, Francois. Pp. 287-8. C. F. Johnson, Elements of Literary Criticism, p. 54. 2 "It is to be noticed, however, — and here, I suspect what Ruskin calls the mystery of the imagination enters, — that this process of abstraction, selection, combination, is mostly not a conscious one. The wholes, though they must doubtless be formed of elements gathered in our experience, seem to spring into existence spontaneously. The poet does not laboriously piece together out of his treasured experience the creatures of his imagination; they come to him The elements of which they are made seem to unite according to some laws of spontaneous combination not entirely under the control of the will. " C. T. Winchester, Principles of Literary Criticism, p. the idealized and concrete expression of what one understands of human nature, it may live for one as no actual character may. It may be like no living . . . K-man being, yet like all human beings. There is much, naturally, that a man shares with others of his own type or class, and much that be-. longs to him individually. His character is complex. He is, to a greater or less extent, the product of external forces, the resultant of his own will, and the expression of individual peculiarities. He is all of these variously combined. In so far as he is the product of external forces he may be called typical. The reason is clear: Etymologically, a type is something "struck out"; acted upon, therefore, by an external force. When a great number of things are acted upon by the same external force, they all bear the same stamp; they are typical. Likewise, when a great number of persons are acted upon similarly by the same external force, they are shaped according to the same pattern; they, too, are typical. Every variation in external forces will cause a new type; and the variations may be many. These forces thus acting on a great number of people in the same way one may call environment. The nature of the soil, the contour of the land, the climate, the location beside forest, sea, lake, or river, a1, 1/ affect the people who live continuously in a certa‘ region. Heredity and occupation, too, are forms of environment. Kentucky is an environment; so is prison; so are home training and inherited principles; so is the profession of law. Mr. Theobald is typical of the artist dreamer; Adoniram Penn, of the stern New Englander. Miss Florence in They sings "as the blind sing — from the soul. " The typical, though always present in character, is not always necessary to characterization; for the representative may express itself in another way. People may be grouped according to certain class characteristics which are the resultant not of common external forces, but of common habitual choices or acts of will. When a man makes a choice which will advance his own individual interests, even at the expense of other persons, he is said to be selfish; when he is possessed with a desire to rise above his present self and his present surroundings, to become , , , , niore important than he is, he is called ambitious; when he does a thing that is hard, because he feels , that it is a right thing, he is courageous. When he habitually makes such a choice, he becomes a selfish, an ambitious, a brave man, and is classed along with others who are actuated by a like habitual motive. The characteristic which he has thus in common with a class may be called generic. The generic differs from the typical in that it is produced not by one common external force acting on all persons alike, but by the workings of innumerable like forces within the characters themselves. Phillips Brooks and Senator Lodge may both be called typical of New England, but their likeness goes no farther. Their generic qualities are different. One might conceive an ambitious New Englander, an idealistic New , Englander, a truthful New Englander, a cowardly New Englander, a shiftless New Englander. Yet one knows that these attributes and a hundred others are not limited to anyone environment. One must realize, therefore, the qualities that go to make a character typical, as separate from those which go to make him generic. In Mrs. Knollys there is little, if any, of the typical and much of the generic. One may say, however, that one's environment is frequently a matter of individual choice. One Chooses law as a profession, or California as an environment. Yet a man is not brave because 4/ performs a single brave deed. A habit becomes fixed only after an act has been repeated again and again. Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan were ambitious, yet ambition was not necessarily with them a constant aim. They were habitually adventurers, become such by repeated acts of choice. One may decide to be a bricklayer, yet one does not repeat the decision with every new job. Nor does a lawyer reiterate his intention of being a lawyer every time he gains a new client. Choice, in such a case, is final and decisive, and it establishes a permanent environment or external mold of character. A farmer is still a farmer long after he has ceased from active toil. Thus the typical and generic, though closely related, are separate. Of course, there are at times blendings and overlappings. Mr. Oakhurst is in some ways typical of the professional gambler, yet his gambling is the result of many separate acts of will. The typical thus seems to blend with the generic. Environment, however, may influence choice and to the extent that it does, the typical will assimilate the generic. A drunkard may be such partly because of environment, partly because many repeated choices have ikth him become a habit. It is home training and early environment that have much to do in developing the state of Markheim's conscience. The variations, the combinations, and the blendings of the typical and generic are almost unlimited. To them, however, must be added yet a third element of character. rn order to be interesting, a character must be shown to possess individual as well as representative qualities. Every person has characteristics which differentiate him from every other person of the same type or class. ' His individual eccentricities are his, irrespective of any external shaping force or of any habit of will. By means of them a character is made to seem interesting, lifelike, and convincing. Individual characteristics are different in every person: generic characteristics, though resulting from individual choice, are common to a class. It is generic for a man to be ambitious; it is individual for Sohn Flemming in Marjorie Daw to throw books at his servant Watkins. Lack of individuality of "characterization results in flatness. Love stories seem especially liable to this defect. Their characters are sure to be "popular" and "handsome"; they do the customary things and make the customary rem7rks, — at least, the remarks commonly supposed to be customary. They are simply lovers, and on that account are supposed to be interesting. In fiction, the proverb that "all the world loves a lover" is not necessarily true. Unless the lover is individual or is involved in unique circumstances, he is simply one of a large class and inspires little more interest than does a toy soldier moved by cleverly arranged springs. Marks of individuality should always be definite, yet not exaggerated. An individual is not necessarily abnormal or1. cmes. It is not necessary continually to call attention to peculiarities. No one quality will make a character individual. Individuality is rather the breath of personality. It may be as definite as the fragrance of a rose and as subtly manifested as the variation in the light-tones of successive days. 1 Cf. Diana's remark, "Women are women, and I am a woman: but I am I, and unlike them. " George Meredith, Diana of the Crossways, Boxhill Edition, p. 218. Individuality, as expressive of a whole personality, is many-sided, and unites many contrasting elements of character. Adequately to depict it, is not to emphasize it in one particular alone, but to appreciate its varying lights. and shades and to blend these in one harmonious whole. To show individuality by some external mark, perhaps a manner of laughing, or a nervous winking of the eyes, is to make a character of wrong proportions; not a true character, but an oddity. Character may be at once fully rounded and individual. Sarah Penn is a woman capable of making her husband listen when he does not wish. to hear her, capable of drawing information from her son when he would rather profess ignorance of this knowledge. She is undaunted and somewhat angered by the attempted interference of the minister. Yet at the last of her talk with her husband she assumes almost a beseeching attitude. She is a careful housekeeper, a faithful wife, and a mother solicitous for her children. At the last, she speaks to her husband almost tenderly. Commanding, capable, faithful, tender, she is withal a resolute woman. Markheim appears with "pity, horror, resolve, terror, fascination, and physical repulsion" written on his face and manifest in his actions. Confronted by his sin, he says of himself, "Evil and good run strong in me, haling me both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts. " Variations are evident between one character and another; changes occur, likewise, from time to time in the same character. Development or deterioration may take place. One expects to see such changes appearing in a novel, whose province may be the whole of a life. Within the briefer limits of the Short-story, however, it would seem that only the stationary, the unchanged character might with success be handled. ' The stationary character is more easily treated than the progressive. The portrayal of character change is, nevertheless, a legitimate field for the Short-story. If a change is sudden, one may grasp the moment of its occurrence as Stevenson has done in Markheim. Less than an hour probably elapsed between Markheim's killing of the dealer and the time when he gave himself up. Yet in this time Markheim passed his life in review and condemned it. Character development, however, generally takes place more gradually. In The Outcasts of Poker Flat, it takes six days to bring out the latent good of the characters. During this time of privation and danger the outcasts manifest what would otherwise have remained unsuspected; their characters seem, As it were, to unfold. It is not actual growth that takes place; it is, nevertheless, real development. They are stronger men and women than they were when they left Poker Flat. Mrs. Knollys is less noticeably progressive. The change in her character is a maturing of what has been already seen; it is the change from a green to a fully ripened purple grape. 1 By development of character in a story one may mean two different things. One may refer to the actual change which takes place in a character; one may mean, on the other hand, the change in the reader's conception of a character from start to finish. Of course, one's idea of character, however, may or may not develop within the limits of the story. It, t00, is a real development. Thus a Short-story may not represent the development of a complete character, but it may show fully the development of character in one respect. A character, whether stationary or progressive, is best portrayed by what he says and does in the main-incident. No amount of exposition or description will make us realize a character as does the Lmain incident in which he is involved. In it, the whole man may be displayed. Typical, generic, and individual characteristics appear. The generic which constitutes the motive for action will there be made to reach its strongest expression. Minor incidents may show a character 'consistent; the main incident will persuade one that a story friend is trustworthy or courageous. To persuade in a story is, however, somewhat different from persuading by force of logic in a cold, scientific treatise. In the ordinary affairs of life, in business, and in science, a man demands proof. He knows well that the strongly consistent act is not the defining act. When he reads a story, however, he adopts a different attitude; his reason is subordinated to his imagination. He is then usually satisfied to judge of character by inference from the strongly consistent act. In his estimate of friends, he acts similarly. Rarely does he see a friend undergo a defining test of character. Because he has talked with him and watched him, because he has found him consistent in all that he knows of him, he accepts i. him as a friend, never doubting. In a story, furthermore, he trusts the writer's conception of a man, for the writer knew the character more intimately than the reader knows him. If the writer intended the character as such a nian, the reader usually asks no further guaranty. A defining test of a character trait, although perhaps not always essential, is desirable, — especially in the character story. John Oakhurst is defined, for he met the supreme test of his acceptance( of chance. Markheim, also, is defined, for he did the thing that was hardest for him to do. Mr. Theohald is defined, for he failed in his masterpiece. Is Mrs. Knollys? Is she not the merely consistent character? Nothing depended on her hopefulness. Charles Knollys would have been found; the old guide would have remembered the accident and would have notified Mrs. Knollys. Yet Mrs. Knollgs is, first of all, a story of character. Unique circumstances and well-developed atmosphere do much, however, towards intensifying the single impression and making the story powerful. Exact definition of a character trait occurs, though less frequently, in stories of action and atmosphere. In reading The Masque of the Red Death, one's interest is so completely absorbed by the description of the ball that one thinks scarcely at all of Prince Prospero. He is not strongly drawn, but he is definitely characterized as a selfishly proud man. Selfish pride governed every act. Such was his motive in retiring with his friends into his castellated abbey; such, in providing the magnificent entertainment for his guests when others were suffering and dying; such again was his motive in resenting the intrusion of the horribly masked guest. Malicious revengefulness on the part of the main character of The Cask of Amontillado is clearly defined. Not only was his act premeditated, but the motive seems also to have been common in his family. A man capable of such a deed would be capable, also, of much lesser acts of revenge. In a story, what a man does or says habitually or premeditatively without influence of reward or punishment indicates his character. If, however, the main character can be sliown as acting consistently in spite of the certainty of reward or punishment, the intensity of a characteristic may be measured. The greater the intensity of the characteristic as displayed, the more powerful will be the story. Thus far, what has been said has applied almost wholly to the main character, as shown in the main story-incident. There are, however, lesser means of characterizing both the main and the minor characters. These means may be either direct or indirect. Of the two, the direct is much the easier and generally much the less effective. It tells facts and informs the reader once and for aft what he is expected to believe about a character. It may be purely expository, it may be descriptive, it may be a combination, partly expository, partly descriptive. Such characterization often fails because it is too detailed. /The writer has perhaps sought to gain definiteness by comprehensiveness. He succeeds in boring the reader by a mass of meaningless details. Imagination is given little or no chance. The picture is often but a blur in which one can distinguish scarcely anything and from which a reader wearily turns away. Clearness demands only that the essentials of a character be brought into focus. It is possible to arrange in the mind only a few details at once. Beyond these all others are useless, or worse than useless; for they fail to further the single impression of a story. A character does not consist of details; it is a whole; it is not a bundle of facts to be presented to the reader, but an impression to be made on him. One is not conscious, during one's reading, of all the structural means whereby a story produces its effect; one is not aware of all the details that make up a character. Where details are given, one grasps not a host of disconnected items, but just those few which seem to have peculiar meaning. Unconsciously one fixes upon these, and around them shapes the whole in imagination. ' They are the part which one has spiritually discerned; they produce a harmonized impression; they enable one to feel a character, not as a specimen, but as a living being. \ 1". . . but what may be called the incompleteness of imaginative vision does unquestionably add to its charm. We have dropped out of our picture all irrelevant or unpleasing details; our attention is concentrated upon those few features that gave us the powerful and characteristic impression, and all the rest are lost in a dim and hazy background. The whole picture is thus toned into harmony with its prevailing sentiment. " C. T. Winchester, The Principles of Literary Criticism, p. 133. Any analysis of thoughts and feelings is subject to similar objection, unless a character can be represented as actually saying these things, when the characterization becomes indirect. Occasionally, it is useful to show the way a man thinks. One enjoys, in Mrs. Knollys, hearing about the scientist's mental processes: "He had been wondering what the fish had been going to do in that particular gallery, and secretly doubting whether it had known its own mind, and gone thither with the full knowledge and permission of its maternal relative. Indeed, the good Doctor would probably have ascribed its presence to the malicious and personal causation of the devil, but that the one point on which he and Spliithner were agreed was the ignoring of unscientific hypotheses. The Doctor's objections to the devil were none the less strenuous for being purely scientific. " If long continued, however, the recital of one's ramblings of thought grows exceedingly wearisome. Unless the reader is in perfect sympathy with a character, an analysis seems like a dry record of events. If the situation is intense, the thinking may also be intense and concentrated on one idea. A few sentences of such analysis may then be of assistance in showing a character. Direct characterization should, whenever possible, be presented gradually, for the obvious reason that exposition and description of any length interrupt a narrative, and thus interfere with the rapid move- ment of a story. A few words of description or of exposition here and there throughout a story will not thus interfere at all, and by developing one's idea of character little by little may produce an illusion of reality. One may learn to know a character as one knows a friend; each new sight will add to the conception. For several paragraphs in Markheim there is no direct characterization of the dealer. Then one is told that " . . the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tiptoe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. " Four paragraphs later, one is told of his "dry and biting voice. " Conversation continues for some time before one sees his "thin blond hair falling over his eyes. " After the murder, we hear that his clothes were poor and miserly and that the body looked "strangely meaner than in life. " Sarah Penn is characterized directly near the beginning of The Revolt of Mother in a paragraph partly descriptive, partly expository. Later, a paragraph is devoted to describing her as a model housekeeper. This paragraph seems almost to interrupt the narrative. In another place she is mentioned as having "a patient and steadfast soul. " Again it is said, "She stood in the door like a queen; she held her head as if it bore a crown; there was that patience that makes authority royal in her voice. " At the time of the minister's call, "The saintly expression of her face remained fixed, but there was an angry flush over it. " Such is the gradual method of direct delineation. The method of a long unbroken description may, of course, be used, but with less certainty of effectiveness. If it is used, the character may be most naturally presented near the beginning, before the narrative is well under way, and before the reader has himself shaped the character in his imagination. Effectiveness in direct characterization may be secured, too, if the statements in regard to a character, instead of being expressed by the writer, can be put into the mouth of a narrator-character or of some character of a dialogue. A narrative setting may thus be given which will go far to bridge over any apparent break. Mr. Theobald is seen through the eyes of the narrator-character, and again through those of Mrs. Coventry and of the Signora Serafina. Jimmy Wells, first described by the writer as a typical guardian of the peace, is later characterized by Bob as a friend. Miss Florence is directly described by the narrator-character of They: "The garden door — of heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall — opened. A woman in a big garden-hat set her foot slowly on the hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming some sort of apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind. " Later he says, "She stood looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the first time that she was beautiful. " Delineated thus in relation to the narrator, she seems not like a wooden figure set up for us to look at, but a living human being. The description is a part of the narrative itself. Indirect characterization, although perhaps more difficult than the direct, is also, when skillfully used, more effective. One may learn something of a character from direct statements about him; one judges far more by inference from his speech and his actions. One compares him with other men, notices the attitude he inspires in them, watches his dealings with them, listens to what he says to them. The indirect is thus the illustrative method; it is the expression of fact by concrete examples. Its manner is narrative. Instead of benumbing his imagination, it encourages the reader to form his own estimate of a character. A policeman may be said to be a typical "guardian of the peace, " but he is more accurately characterized by his act in turning over a criminal, his one-time friend, to justice. It may be said that a woman is a model housekeeper. One prefers, however, to watch her at work in her house. The act is more convincing than the fact statement. It is nearly always true, however, that in the Short-story both methods are used, the one to supplement the other. One may tell of the play of a man's emotions or of his dominant motive, and then illustrate them in speech and action. One may say that Mrs. Knollys was hopeful and then show her exemplifying this hopefulness through many years of waiting. One may call John Oakhurst a gambler, calm and clearheaded, then show him standing erect while the other outcasts are under the influence of liquor, or, after the theft of the mules, refusing to waken the sleepers. "The big, simple-hearted guides" express their sympathy for Mrs. Knollys by their willingness, in a pretended attempt to find her Charles, to descend into the crevasse. There may thus be a proposition and its demonstration. The indirect method may extend _. -even to the direct, for even from a direct statement one may draw inferences. External characteristics, thus, may not simply assist vividness of visualization; they may contribute also to the expression of the intimate personality of a character. By harmonizing external characteristics and character, an inference from a direct, may be made to parallel an inference from an indirect, statement. Characterization may thus gain additional strength. Although the methods are different, the materials of direct and indirect characterization are much the same. Of course, some materials lend themselves more naturally to one treatment, some to the other. Action lends itself almost exclusively to the indirect handling. It is true that in The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor begins with the statement that his story is to be of an act of revenge, premeditated and perpetrated under a guise of friendship. He brands himself and his act at the beginning. Usually, however, an action is allowed to be its own comment on character. . Notice one of the details of revenge. In assuming a guise of friendship, Montresor keeps continually urging Fortunato to go back to avoid risk to his health from the dampness of the vaults with their nitre-encrusted walls. By such feigning, he disarms any suspicion that might have arisen in the mind of his victim. Then finally, after he has chained Fortunato securely in the niche, he turns again to say: "Pass your hand over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. " All the cruelty and vengefulness of Montresor's nature are there suddenly revealed. One is thus constantly doing things that reveal character. In refusing himself to arrest his one-time friend, Jimmy Wells reveals a certain tenderness. But for the evidence of the milk tallies of the interview with Turpin in They, one might almost have questioned Miss Florence's reality. She is shown to be strict in business and aware even of the tricks of her tenant. Another means of characterization is to show the effect that one character has upon another. One person may inspire fear, or admiration, or confidence, or suspicion, or disgust, in another person. It is comparatively easy to state that one person impressed another in a certain definite way. "Even the phlegmatic driver of their Einsplinner looked back out of the corner of his eye at the schOne Engltinderin and compared her mentally with the far-famed beauty of the KOnigsee. " It is said, too, that Mrs. Knollys felt "almost like confiding" in the German scientist, for he was "the oldest gentleman she had seen. " These, however, are at best merely direct statements. It is a far more difficult task to show an effect as produced, and yet not seem to drag into the story unnecessary incident. Notice how skillfully Stevenson has shown the suspicion that the curio dealer feels of Markheim. When Markheim winks and turns aside from the candle, thrust suddenly before his eyes, the dealer's suspicions are evidently increased. He remarks "a certain manner" in his customer. He jumps back when he is suddenly confronted by the hand-mirror. The reader, too, is made suspicious, and is prepared for what is to follow. The device is here obviously effective. Personal appearance is of comparatively slight value for characterization in the Short-story. There is no time for elaborate description of how a man appeared or of what he wore. Generally, only a few words are given. Even these may frequently be omitted without much detriment to a story. Only such details of personal appearance are used as serve in some definite way to further one's idea of a character. Daniel Dravot is known chiefly by a flaming red beard and Peachey Carnehan by his "eyebrows that meet over the nose in an inch-broad black band. " Both men, too, were large. Aside from these statements, however, little else is said of the personal appearance of the adventurers. The descriptions, such as they are, serve as tags of identification and to mark these men as in some way extraordinary. Notice the description of "Silky" Bob: "The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale, square-framed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly set. " The description is short, but careful. Its purpose is, first, to serve as a basis of later identification. It fits exactly, however, the character of Bob, the smooth criminal. It is a hard face which arouses one's instinctive suspicion. One wonders immediately about the cause of the little white scar. Mr. Theobald, when first seen by moonlight, appears merely an artist with an artist's hair and costume. Later, seen by daylight, he is described in more detail. He is older than he first seemed: "His velvet coat was threadbare, and his short slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a rustiness which marked it an 'original, ' and not one of the picturesque reproductions which artists of his craft affect. His eye was mild and heavy, and his expression singularly gentle and acquiescent; the more so for a certain pallid leanness of visage which I hardly knew whether to refer to the consuming fire of genius or to a meagre diet. " There is not an item of this description but adds to the effect of the whole story or deepens one's impression of the artist. Every detail harmonizes with the character as a whole. More use is here made of costume than is general. The costume, here, however, is uniquely expressive of the man. Otherwise it would have been but lumber, detracting from the effect of the whole. Costume and personal appearance that are not uniquely characteristic of an individual are, in the Short-story, worse than useless. Not only personal appearance, but names are suggestive of character. They should, therefore, be chosen with care. Poe wrote fantastic stories, and he fitted his characters with fantastic names. In many of his stories he seems to show a fondness for the liquids and for the long vowels, for they harmonized with his effects. Eleonora, Ligeia, Morella, Madeline, are some of his women. His men are not so unusual. Still, one notices Prince Prospero, Fortunato, and Montresor. No one cares to imitate his names. They would not suit our stories nowadays. Yet one may well follow his example in fitting a name to a character. Mary, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Kate are much used for simple home-loving women. Writers of love stories seem to have a fondness for Marjorie and Dorothy. Similar differences are noticeable in the names applied to men in stories. John and James, Robert and William, with the corresponding Jim and Bob and Bill are frequent for the ordinary man, while characters in any sense unusual have less common names. There is no rule. Every person knows that a wrong name will jar, and every person has a feeling for names appropriate to this or that character. Usually such a feeling is a safe guide. It is useful sometimes to tell of a character's accomplishments. One may judge him not only by what one sees him doing, but also by what he has done. By the nature of an accomplishment, one may learn something of a man's innate aptitudes; by the difficulty of the task and by his failure or success in it, something of his strength. Dravot introduces himself and Carnehan thus: "Now, Sir, let me introduce to you Brother Peachey Carnehan, — that's him, — and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professions the better, for we have been most things in our time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and correspondents of the Backwoodsman when we thought the paper wanted one. " One has already heard something of Carnehan's ability as pretended correspondent of the Backwoodsman; one is to learn later of Dravot's successful mimicry of a mad priest. The men are clearly eager for adventure and capable of adapting themselves to any sort of life. To see them later "crowned kings of Kafiristan" is no greater surprise than to know that they, were once proof-readers and street preachers. To characterize a man by his accomplishments is more rarely done than to characterize him by his environment. A man may be placed in an environment which serves simply as a stage setting for his action. As such, it may influence him and leave its mark upon him, but it is in no sense expressive of his character. For environment in its broad sense, a man is not responsible; for environment in its harrower, more restricted sense, a man may be responsible. Thus, a person is to a certain extent judged by the room he lives in, by the books he has around him, by the magazines he has on his table, by the pictures on his walls. In mentioning with contempt Mrs. Coventry's appreciation of art, Mr. Theobald speaks of "that horrible mendacious little parlor of hers, with its trumpery Peruginos. " A woman, too, may be judged by the scoured brilliancy of her pots and pans, and by the general neatness of her house. One knows something of Prince Prospero when one has noticed the gorgeous furnishings and hangings of his apartments. One knows something of Adoniram Penn from the fact that he would have two barns for his animals and for his crops, and would live himself in a small, uncomfortable house. Miss Florence arranged her rooms so that they would be attractive to children. There was always a fire in her hearth. In many slight ways, perhaps by a sentence here and there, characteristic environment may be indicated. Yet perhaps the most common and most important material of characterization is speech. A man is judged by what he says and by his manner of saying it. Some men are fluent, and their words hurry forth in a torrent; others are reserved, and find difficulty in speaking. Some speak in affected language; others use simple and natural words. Some speak with every semblance of frankness; others as if they were disguising themselves or their thoughts. Some are calm and deliberate, others are excitable. All these differences in manner show differences in character. Notice the German scientist's slow and formal discourse. His mind is bent on science. Notice Mr. Theobald's enthusiastic discourses on the beautiful and the true. In all speed, however, manner and content are so intermingled that one need not distinguish them in their effect upon characterization. The contrast between Carnehan and Dravot expresses character, alike by its manner ' of expression and by its content. Each of the men displays himself frequently in characteristic speech. Carnehan when advised "not to run the Central India States as the correspondent of the Backwoodsman, " because "there is a real one knocking about, " answers: "Thank you, and when will the swine be gone? I can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump. " Notice, too, the following speech of Mr. Theobald when asked whether he had been very productive: 'Not in the vulgar sense!' he said, at last. 'I have chosen never to manifest myself by imperfection. The good in every performance I have reabsorbed into the generative force of new creations; the bad — there's always plenty of that — I have religiously destroyed. I may say, with some satisfaction, that I have not added a mite to the rubbish of the world. As a proof of my conscientiousness, ' — and he stopped short, and eyed me with extraordinary candor, as if the proof were to be overwhelming — 'I've never sold a picture! "At least no merchant traffics in my heart!" Do you remember the line in Browning? My little studio has never been profaned by superficial, feverish, mercenary work. It's a temple of labor, but of leisure! Art is long. If we work for ourselves, of course, we must hurry. If we work for her, we must often pause. She can wait. ' He is a dreamer, pure and simple. The speech of characters is generally in the form of conversation. However effective it may be, good conversation is exceedingly difficult to write. The first requirement of good dialogue is that it should seem easy, natural, and spontaneous. It should not be stilted and formal, as if the characters were talking out of a book. It should not be ornate. It should not go to the other extreme and be filled with unnecessary slang and colloquialisms. It should, so far as is possible, be made to resemble actual conversation. The second requirement of good dialogue is that it should be interesting of itself. It should have a point. The policeman and Bob might have talked about the weather and all sorts of commonplaces, yet they did not. Unless conversation is of some value in furthering progress, the story will be better without it. Ordinary conversation is full of irrelevancies. These must not appear in a story. If conversation is to be really interesting to a reader, it should be thoroughly interesting to the participants. It is most natural and most interesting on occasions of more or less dramatic intensity. Yet where there is dramatic intensity, care should be taken that there be no violation of propriety. Under unusual stress, people do not express themselves. Conversation in They is subject to frequent pauses. The most natural and interesting conversation is that which imitates most closely ordinary people in their moments of animated discourse. Category:Character